Hello, I am Scott Peterson, the new Executive Director of the Checks and Balances Project. I want to introduce myself because I know that there’s been a lull in Checks and Balances activities while the Project was between executive directors.
I want to first say that the people who have come before me in this role – Andrew Schenkel, Gabe Elsner and Matt Garrington – did amazing watchdog work. If I can be half as successful as they have been in getting to the bottom of how and why decisions are being made that affect taxpayers and consumers, I’ll be satisfied. I hope to build on their legacy in the months ahead.
I’m drawn to the Checks and Balances Project at a personal level. After years in New York as a spokesman for the financial industry, I now live and work in Virginia full-time. I’ve become increasingly concerned about the global climate crisis, and the efforts by the fossil fuel lobby to block clean energy solutions. As I’ve been more deeply involved in Virginia, I’ve been surprised by just how successful fossil fuel interests have been in blocking progress of clean energy and worse, how few people know about it. In fact, I think that the influence peddling and propaganda by polluting industries is what has contributed significantly to the loss of public faith in government institutions. The Nation says that influence is a $9B a year industry. That’s a staggering figure.
The costs of the influence business to average Americans are real. Look no further than the latest outrage, Ohio Governor John Kasich signing into law a bill “freezing” the growth of clean energy technologies. At the behest of one dirty utility – First Energy – and the Koch Brothers from Kansas, Governor Kasich has put at risk 25,000 clean energy jobs in state that is desperate for economic activity. The state’s Renewable Portfolio Standard that Governor Kasich has frozen has saved Ohioans an estimated $1 billion to date.
That’s just one example. Back in my state of Virginia, we give tens of millions of dollars a year in tax money as a subsidy to the coal industry. It’s interesting to note this is the same industry that funds front groups to yell at the solar and wind industries about being supported by popular, pro-clean energy policies. These technologies should “stand on their own feet,” the coal lobby says. I think we can start by having the coal industry take the first step of getting off subsidies. It’s only been on them for, what, the last 150 years?
Lobbyist influence and what I call the legalized corruption of lobbying money has become some “New Normal” that Americans are supposed to accept. I don’t think we should accept it, and that’s why I’ve committed to build on the Checks and Balances legacy in the months ahead.
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